Origins Campaign

[Mr. Gray]

So I have decided to construct my campaign world for champions complete from scratch, and because I am a masochist who needs to do everything the hard way. I have decided to set the first seven adventures in New York City and make it a serialized character origin story. The player’s will all start the campaign as normal college students, “Standard Normal + CP25 +15 Complications” who need a professor’s signature to drop or add a class to their schedule.  Our heroes miss the professors office hours and have to find him in his lab naturally the bad guys are trying to grab the professors canisters of mutagenic gas and the players have to stop them. Essentially the first three adventures are a brawl in this lab and of course the canisters break. At the end of each adventure my intent is to award a small lump sum of CP and complications for the players to build their character up with. By the end of game seven the players should have a superhero character built on 300cp and 60 complications. I do however have some concerns.

1.       I am wondering how difficult / practical this plan will be to execute. Essentially I am wondering what the more experienced GM’s here think the stumbling blocks would be for this campaign set up. Would you try to do this in your games?

2.       Because I am staring the PC’s at such low power levels will combats be excessively long assuming the opposition is built on the same amount of CP.?

                     3.         As written the PC’s opposition for the first few adventures are nebulous evil organizations how important is it for them to be opposed                                          by a single ‘supervillain’ in these games. Can I put off introducing a supervillain until after their origin story is complete or do I need one earlier?

[Scott Baker]

1. This is certainly doable. The one thing that you don't mention which I feel is important is whether the players want to play this sort of game. When I'm starting a game, we always have a discussion about what sort of game we'll be playing. Before you put a lot of work into this, talk to the players to see what they think.

 

2. No. They could actually be quite short if you have normals getting shot by modern firearms.

 

3. There's no rule that says you have to have a supervillain for every adventure. But see #1.

[Mr. Gray]

The players have in fact approved this campaign arch, because as a group we have little to no experience with this system (I ran some champions in the late eighties early nineties but that’s It.) the idea was to slowly evolve the heroes so we can maximize story arch and minimize mechanics mistakes. I am lucky in that everyone at my table has a lot of GM experience in various game systems and are very willing to work with me. 

[Scott Baker]

Then it sounds like a good idea. The most important thing is for everyone to be on the same page as to what the campaign is about and where it's headed.

[Haerandir]

You don't need to jump to supervillains right away.  Even in a traditional superhero adventure with experienced players, it's not uncommon for the PCs to fight a bunch of agents, rather than several costumed villains.  It has the added bonus for groups that are learning the system of making it easier to adjust combat difficulty when the GM is trying to figure out what the PCs can and can't handle.  Adding or subtracting one or two mooks from a fight in midstream is a lot more seamless than having a named supervillain show up/disappear, and probably requires less prep work from the GM.

 

Plus, there's the fun bit where the thugs the PCs fight in the lab ALSO get exposed to the mutagen, and develop powers on the same timescale as the PCs, giving you a ready source of recurring villains for later adventures.

[bluesguy]

I would suggest watching some of the current 'super' TV shows to see how they do it. Agents of Shield has been mostly very experienced agents and few supers of any strip.  That has changed this last season.  Arrow was definitely in the same situation for the first season and a portion of the second season.

 

Most of the heroes in those shows faced normals, some trained (police), some very trained (martial artists, military, etc) and eventually they ran into some supers.

 

I think this is a good idea on your part.  Should be fun.

[Mr. Gray]

I have to say that my desire to play some champions once more, has been largely inspired by the new crop of superhero TV shows, arrow, flash, agents of shield etc. I really love what they have done with Gotham in particular and I thought that Netflix Dare Devil was inspired. My intention is to make my content as original as possible, there will be no guest appearances by famous superheroes from the Marvell and DC universes with very few exceptions. My game will be run in a New York City gone dark and brooding.

[HeroGM]

I like Alston's idea of mystery powers and experience. I would have mine build two characters. One normal, one powered. As they go through they slowly discover their powers

[Burrito Boy]

You don't need to jump to supervillains right away. Even in a traditional superhero adventure with experienced players, it's not uncommon for the PCs to fight a bunch of agents, rather than several costumed villains. It has the added bonus for groups that are learning the system of making it easier to adjust combat difficulty when the GM is trying to figure out what the PCs can and can't handle. Adding or subtracting one or two mooks from a fight in midstream is a lot more seamless than having a named supervillain show up/disappear, and probably requires less prep work from the GM.

 

Plus, there's the fun bit where the thugs the PCs fight in the lab ALSO get exposed to the mutagen, and develop powers on the same timescale as the PCs, giving you a ready source of recurring villains for later adventures.

I like this a lot but I'm out of likes at the moment.

 

 

One justification for keeping supervillains in the background at the beginning is that the heroes are beneath their notice until they reach a certain power level.

[bubba smith]

true

[procyon]

I definitely like your idea for the start of the campaign.  So long as the players are on board, it could add a lot of depth to their backstory.

The idea that the 'incident' also spawns the supervillians is also great.  It also gives the players opportunities to create their hunters/rival/etc in game.

 

Very nice.

[Mr. Gray]

The first game in the origins campaign played out last night and was well received. The player character’s made it to the lab and the shootout with the bad guys ensued. The players received there CP in three block’s one at the start of the adventure Standard Normal + CP25 +15 Complications, one in the middle of the lab fight when they were held up in the armory Skilled Normal +CP25 +10 complications and one at the end after the mutagenic gas canister exploded blaster fire from a robot spider in the lab Competent Normal + CP50 +5 Complications. The players seemed to really enjoy the game and building there character on the fly along the way it all went fairly smooth with a minimum of cat herding along the way. I did let the players know that they could rebuild and adjust there CP spent at the end of each session and one more time when the campaign cap was hit. Base states were adjusted at each break point where appropriate. There were only two big problems along the way the professor NPC was shot in the head and killed so not one of the characters got there drop add form filled out for his or her class. Player 5 a guest player who does not play with us every week blew up the team of mercenaries from the help desk I gave him to run he rolled a (3) placing explosives for an ambush in the steam tunnels under the lab. Net result of that will be a minor re-wright of the steam tunnel section of the next adventure, mutagenic zombie mercenaries I think.  The end result for this session was player Character’s built on 100cp+ 30 complications who need to escape the lab through the stem tunnels. The next session is in there weeks will update.